


Martyr's Fall: Aspect of the Demon

by leonidaslion



Series: Angelwings [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-23
Updated: 2011-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-15 00:59:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's having a little demon problem.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Dean pulled the Impala to a stop in front of the motel’s main office and killed the engine. Squinting through the rain pounding on the windshield, Sam could make out a woman in her late twenties, standing behind the desk. Of course. It had to be a woman. He scowled and then jerked in alarm a moment later as he heard the driver’s door click open. Luckily, Dean was slow after half a day at the wheel, and Sam was able to reach over across his brother and slam the door shut before Dean had swung his legs out.

“Dude, what the hell?” Dean demanded.

Sam let out a private sigh of relief as he moved back into his own seat. “It’s a woman, Dean.”

“And?” Dean was staring at Sam as though he’d grown a pair of horns. Not that that would have been too abnormal in their business, especially the way things had been going lately.

“And there is no way in hell that I am going to let you walk in there dripping water and pheremones all over the place.”

“Oh, Christ, are you still on about that? I’m fine, man. Nothing’s wrong with me, okay?” He made a move to haul himself out of the car again and Sam dropped one of his hands on Dean’s shoulder. He felt his brother tense, and when Dean looked back Sam could tell that his patience had snapped.

“Get your hand off me.”

Dean’s eyes had darkened in anger, but Sam had to try anyway. “Dean—”

“I mean it. You do not want to push me right now.”

“You can’t just—”

“That’s it.” Dean pulled sideways and was up and out of the car before Sam knew what was happening. He fell sideways into the empty driver’s seat before he could catch himself, and then looked up to see his brother leaning back into the car, face blank. Sam could almost feel the anger coming off of him in waves of heat, and … was that _sulfur_? Oh, shit.

“Dean, you have to—”

“Shut up, Sam. You’ve been riding my ass all week and I’m sick of this shit. You’ve had your little joke, so just drop it already.”

“But you—”

“I mean it. Now I’m going in there to get a room and when I get back out here you better have this out of your system or I _will_ go demonic on your ass.” He slammed the door in Sam’s face and strode toward the open door of the motel office, broad shoulders hunched in his leather jacket.

No. Oh, dear God no.

Sam scrambled out of the car himself, almost tripping himself in the process, but still managed to catch up to Dean as he stepped into the office and out of the rain. Dean shook his head as he stepped up to the counter, sending shining drops of water flying. Then he leaned forward, smiling that smile he reserved for any woman he didn’t have immediate plans to screw: still blindingly large and warm, but as sexless as Dean ever got. Which hadn’t been saying much before, and in the present circumstances …

Sam hazarded a glance at the receptionist and groaned inwardly. The woman’s eyes were glazed and her mouth hung open slightly, as though ... No, was she? Was she really? Good grief she was actually _panting_ at Dean like some kind of dog in heat. And Dean hadn’t even said anything yet. It had been bad when they stopped for lunch in Harrisburg, but not this bad.

Dean opened his mouth—probably to comment on the weather and then ask for a room—and Sam jumped on him, wrapping one arm around his brother’s chest and clamping the other over his mouth. Dean tried to spin, arms coming up to slide under Sam’s and push him off, but Sam had been paying attention to Dean’s hand-to-hand combat lessons since he had taken up hunting again, and Dean wasn’t getting rid of him that easily. Of course, holding onto Dean wasn’t all that simple, either.

Sam thought that he had seized hold of a bolt of lightning instead of his brother. He could feel heat crawling off of Dean’s body, and the scent of sulfur filled his nostrils. And, yeah, maybe Dean was a little stronger than he had been a few days ago. A little faster. But if Sam let Dean go now, his brother would certainly have something to say—several choice things, actually—and then he would be trying to peel this innocent receptionist off of his brother and find her someone—someone other than Dean, that was—to sleep with.

He spun and, taking a calculated risk, shifted his grip on Dean to grab one of his brother’s wrists and twist his arm up behind his back. Then he took three steps forward and slammed Dean face-first against the wall, pinning him there with his own body. Dean bucked his head back, knocking it into Sam’s chin and making him bite his tongue. The metallic tang of blood instantly filled his mouth.

“Dean!” he yelled, struggling to keep Dean from escaping either the press of his body or the hold of his hand on his mouth. “Calm down! Just _look_ at her! Look at what you’re doing to her!”

Dean’s head was twisted the right way, and what Sam was saying must have gotten through to him, because Sam felt the moment Dean noticed the receptionist again. He felt it in the way Dean instantly went lax against him, all his muscles releasing at once.

Sam chanced a glance at the woman himself and felt his stomach heave. The color was high in her cheeks and she was staring at Dean as though she was a starving tiger that had been presented with a bloody hunk of meat. Suddenly, Sam wasn’t sure whether he was trying to keep her from throwing herself at Dean for her sake or his brother’s.

“Wha ‘m fu?” Dean mumbled against Sam’s hand, and even that soft mumble was enough to bring the woman to her feet and drive her forward against the counter. Luckily, she wasn’t thinking clearly enough to remember the little door to her left, and she wasn’t gone enough to climb over the obstacle. For now, she made an unhappy noise in the back of her throat and pushed against the counter as though she could force herself through it if she tried hard enough.

“Shut up!” Sam shook Dean, hard, and then shoved him against the wall again. He could feel the beginnings of a headache coming on. Well, the week he’d just had, he shouldn’t have been surprised.

“Now,” he continued more calmly. “You’re going to keep your mouth shut and I’m going to let you go, okay?” Dean nodded, once, and very deliberately. “Okay then.” Sam started to take his hand away and then hesitated to add, “And no sudden movements, either.” When Dean had nodded in agreement to that as well, Sam let his brother go.

True to his word, Dean merely used his new-found freedom to turn around so that his back was against the wall. His eyes, wide and frightened, kept alternating between Sam and the salivating woman.

 _Dude, what the fuck?_ Dean mouthed.

Sam sighed. “I tried to tell you, man. That incubus infected you.”

Dean scowled and opened his mouth, then shut it again as he glanced back at his latest conquest. He settled for shrugging his shoulders sharply and cutting his eyes toward the woman. _So what do we do about her?_

“For now, we need to get you out of here. I think it’ll be okay if you walk—slowly—out the door. And seriously, do _not_ strut.”

 _I don’t strut!_ And how Dean could sound annoyed when he wasn’t even actually saying anything, Sam didn’t know. He didn’t really care. All he wanted right now was some space between Dean and—his eyes darted to the name-tag hanging askew on the woman’s shirt—Darlene.

He watched anxiously as Dean started for the door, moving in what Sam supposed Dean thought was an inconspicuous manner. It looked as though he were auditioning for the Ministry of Silly Walks. Of course, judging from the noises coming from Darlene, she didn’t find it very silly. Oh, hell.

“Just run, Dean! Out of here now!”

Dean took Sam at his word and was outside in a moment. Sam heard scrambling behind him and swore inwardly as he followed his brother, slamming the door shut as he dove through it. An instant later, he heard a heavy thud. He looked up to see Darlene’s face framed in the door’s small window. Empty of everything but _need/want/take/now_ , she pressed against it, trying to push herself through and out into the wet night.

Dean, of course, was standing just outside the awning in the rain, dripping water everywhere and looking like some rich girl’s sex toy.

“Damn it, Dean!” Sam growled. “Line of sight, man! Get out of her line of sight!”

Dean started and dove for the Impala. Sam followed more gingerly. He’d twisted his ankle on the way out. Oh well, at least he’d gotten Dean to believe him now, and no one had gotten hurt—or fucked.

Of course, Darlene was a drooling pile of hormones, but they could fix that. He hoped.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Dean drove the Impala around the side of the motel and picked the lock on one of the rooms, after first knocking to make sure they weren’t going to barge in on anyone. Once the door had swung open and the light had been turned on, Sam felt the weight on his chest lessen. No bags on the floor or chairs, and the bed had been made in that sterile way only professionals ever seemed to manage. Which meant they were in luck.

“Looks like no one’s home,” Dean grunted, shutting the door behind them and relocking it. He went to a windows and twitched aside the curtain, peeking out. “You think she’s over me yet?”

And of course Dean had to make it sound like this was something natural—something to do with his inherent Deanness that made him so irresistible to women from coast to coast. Women with serious lapses in judgement, anyway. Of all the supernatural things that could have infected Dean, it had to have been an incubus. If there was a God, right now he was kicked back in an easy chair with a beer in one hand and a fat Cuban cigar in the other, laughing his ass off at that pathetic Sam Winchester.

Sam rubbed his temples with one hand. He had a headache, his twisted ankle was killing him, and he was just plain exhausted from the last week spent trying to convince Dean something was wrong with him. If his brother’s ego had been a little smaller, things never would have gotten this far.

“Sam? Sammy?” Dean had turned away from the window and was staring at him, shifting his weight from side to side like a little kid.

Sam sighed, counting to ten on the exhale. “What?”

“Think she’s over me?” Like a dog with a damned bone.

Sam hobbled over to the bed—a king, they couldn’t have picked a room with twins, of course—and sat down. Any other time, Dean would have been poking and prodding his ankle in an instant, demanding to know what was wrong and insisting that Sam had to be more careful with himself. Now he didn’t seem to even notice, and Sam wondered if that was another side effect of the incubus infection, like the sulfur.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with you, and no, I think she got a pretty good dose. We’re going to have to do something about her before someone else shows up looking for a room.”

“What do you mean ‘it doesn’t have anything to do with me’? Dude, did you see the way she was looking at me?”

“Yeah, okay, you but not _you_. It’s that incubus. I think it infected you when it bit you.”

Dean sat on the bed, face and body turned away from Sam. “Yeah. It’s called the Aspect of the Demon. Guess I got more than just one, huh?”

Sam felt his jaw drop open, and he knew he looked ridiculous, but right now that didn’t seem to matter. “You _knew_?” he demanded. “You knew what was going on and you just—just …” He spluttered to a stop.

Dean’s broad shoulders lifted once in a shrug. “What do I look like, Sammy, a fucking idiot? Course I knew.”

“Damn it, Dean! If you knew, then why the hell have you been pretending everything was all right for the past week? Why didn’t we stop and hole up while we figured this thing out?”

“Because I thought I could handle it, all right?” Dean exploded off the bed, pent frustration and anger bubbling out. That sulfur scent had returned, stronger than ever, and Sam thought he would choke on it.

“Yeah, and you’re doing a bang up job with that!” he shot back. “Darlene could be stuck like that!”

Dean shook his head. “No. Not if I—if we—”

“If you fuck her.” Sam stared at his brother incredulously. “You can’t honestly be considering that?”

“Why not, man? It’s just sex. And if it’ll get her out of … that ... then it should be worth it.”

 _Even for a tight ass monk like you._ Dean didn’t say it, but Sam still heard the insult loud and clear. He clenched his jaw and tried to be rational.

“Dean, it’s just—It’s wrong on so many levels. First off, we don’t know what it would do to her. Incubi drink the life-force of their prey during sex, right? You could kill her while trying to fix her. And it’d be _rape_ , Dean. She doesn’t have any free will like this; she hasn’t given her consent—”

“So what, you want to just let her die? Cause last time I checked, when someone’s that far under an incubus’ thrall there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I know, Dean, I ... Oh, hell.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem, Sammy.” Dean’s voice was sarcastic, turning the situation into a joke as usual—and yeah, okay, the whole thing was pretty ironic when you thought about it—but that sulfur smell was still thick in the room.

“Look, we can figure something out. I’ll take Darlene somewhere safe—somewhere isolated like a cabin or something—and then we can do some research and—”

Dean uttered a bitter laugh. “What the hell do you think I’ve been doing all week?”

Sam realized that he was getting a little angry himself: Dean had been strolling along, pretending everything was fine, letting Sam think he was keeping up his normal routine of bar-hopping and womanizing when all along he had been … what?

“You spent all those nights breaking into libraries?” he demanded. “You told me you were—”

“Come on, man. I’m not gonna take a chance hitting some tail when I’ve got some sort of demonic virus thing going on. Give a guy some credit.”

Now that Sam thought about it, he realized that Dean would never put anyone else in harm’s way. He'd spent the whole week thinking that Dean was going out of his way to flirt and worm his way into women’s beds—and getting more and more pissed off about his brother’s refusal to admit anything was happening to him—and Dean had been playing monk in various libraries.

“So you didn’t … all week?” He was still trying to wrap his head around the idea. When Dean was on a job, he was so focused it was a little frightening, but downtime was playtime in his brother’s eyes. And playtime always included a willing blond, brunette or redhead with a stacked chest and legs that went up to her chin.

“Am I not speaking English here or did you leave your brain at the door?” Dean snapped.

“Not even a kiss?” Sam prodded, amused by his brother’s reactions despite the gravity of the situation.

“No, all right! No fucking, no foreplay, no kissing. And you have no clue how fucking hard—” He broke off abruptly, face flushed, and the sulfur smell vanished.

As Sam stared at his brother with dawning suspicion, Dean turned away and headed for the bathroom. “I need to take a piss.”

Sam got up from the bed and followed him, standing awkwardly outside the closed door and trying to decide whether to be amused or appalled. He could hear Dean swearing softly on the other side of the door.

“Are you saying that there have been … other side effects?” Sam asked.

“Christ, man, I’m trying to pee here.”

“Then how come you’re standing by the sink and not the toilet?”

Sam was guessing—he had only taken a quick glance at the set-up upon entering—but he was fairly certain that his brother’s voice was coming from the wrong side of the room. Sure enough, the door flew open, almost hitting him in the nose, and Dean’s glowering face suddenly filled his field of vision. Overwhelmed by the smell of sulfur, Sam staggered back and Dean followed.

“You really wanna know?” he growled. “Fine. I’ve been hard as a fucking rock all week and I. Can’t. Come.”

Sam felt his cheeks warm and knew he was blushing. “Not even …”

He made a motion with one hand, and God, this was sooooo not the conversation he wanted to be having with his brother. Ever. But Dean’s eyes were pained as he shook his head, and Sam’s chest twinged in sympathy.

“I’ve tried, believe me. But I can’t — not since Chesterton, anyway.”

“Oh.” And Sam’s estimation of Dean’s self-restraint sky-rocketed. How the hell was his brother managing to keep it together?

“That all you got to say? No ‘Gee, Dean, that’s too bad’ or ‘Hey, at least you don’t have to worry about shaving the hair on your palms anymore?’”

Sam tried to find something to say and couldn’t. It was all too surreal. Finally, Dean shook his head and turned away, back to the bathroom. His shoulders were slumped.

“Go take care of Darlene, Sam. And get some food while you’re out.” Then the door was shut again, and Sam was dismissed.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Darlene was slumped across the counter, drooling from one side of her mouth and snoring, when Sam walked back into the office. He woke her up with a soft shake of her shoulder.

Opening her eyes, she smiled up at him and said, “Oh dear, I must have dozed off. Can I help you? Do you need a room?”

Sam rented the room they had broken into and then spent half an hour talking with her—asking about the town and where he could find some decent cheap food, but really searching for signs that she was still under the influence of Dean’s incubus thrall. Nothing. And although Sam would make sure to swing past her with the EMF reader later on, he was already sure that, other than a little memory loss, she was fine.

Which was the last bit of good news they had all week.

Dean spent his time holed up in the hotel room at Sam’s insistence, and after an unfortunate incident with the maid, he kept the door locked and deadbolted and the curtains drawn. Even so, as the week went on, Sam started heading out for the library in the morning and stumbling across women—a neighbor from the next room over, a young mother of two who had stopped in to the motel to ask for directions, a forty-five year old divorcee who was walking her dog past the lot—pressed up against the door with a glazed look in their eyes. They had to come inside, just for a minute. To use the toilet, to make a quick phone call, to reapply their lipstick. Please please PLEASE. Need. _Want._

When Sam dragged them about forty feet away from the room, they got a dazed expression on their faces and wandered away. And the whole time he could feel Dean at the window, watching him. Smirking, probably. Damn it! Only his brother would pick a freaking incubus to get infected by. Why couldn’t he have been bitten by something slimy, or with two horns and a tail?

Sam spent the rest of his days in a haze of annoyance and worry while he surfed the web, looking for any information about this Aspect of the Demon thing that would tell them how to fix this mess. Then he went home, cleared out the area by the door where several more women would have accumulated during the day, and headed inside to face his brother, the demon. Which was when his day _really_ went south because Dean didn’t do idle well. Not at all.

Dean spent the first few days amusing himself by tormenting Sam. Little things, like adding salt to Sam’s coffee when he wasn’t looking, or mixing it in with his toothpaste _(salt, being abundant, had always played a large part in their prank wars as children)_ , or covering Sam’s hand with shaving cream while he was sleeping and then tickling his nose with a piece of string. Sam bore it as best as he could. Dean spent all day locked in a shabby motel room, after all, and he was frustrated … in more ways than one.

By the third night, however, Dean was wound up tightly enough to lash out with his fists when Sam made a snide ladies’ man joke and they wound up in a heated scuffle. Sam broke the nightstand and Dean broke Sam’s nose—and just when his ankle had finally healed up.

Dean tried to drag Sam outside to take him to the hospital and almost got mauled by a passing teenager. Then, when Sam got back from his solo trip to the emergency room, Dean spent the rest of the night treating him like glass and getting surlier and surlier about it.

After that, when Sam came back to the motel he made sure to bring a handful of books and used DVDs from the local bookstore. Dean would snatch the offerings up and retreat to his bed, turning his back on Sam and folding into himself.

So when Bobby finally called with information on a woman he thought could help them—Sam had told the man that Dean tangled with a demon and come out with an Aspect, but on pain of castration hadn’t specified anything further—Sam wrote her name and number down on a piece of paper and passed it to his brother.

“Thanks, Bobby. We’ll check it out.”

“You do that. Tell Dean to take care of himself from now on, will you?”

“Sure thing.”

“And, Sam?”

“Yeah?”

“You be careful with this woman. She’s good, and she can help, but she’s not a soldier, if you get what I mean.”

“In it for the money?” Sam asked. They’d run into that type occasionally. Their work was always good, but you had to be careful about dealing with them.

“Something like that,” Bobby said slowly. “She’s not too picky about who she’ll help, is all. And she never does anything for free.”

“We’ve got some money saved up.” Not a lot, but it should be enough. Hopefully.

“That’s not what I meant. She’ll take money usually, yeah, but sometimes she wants something else. Favors, odd jobs.”

“Doesn’t sound unreasonable. She’s never asked for anything, well, _bad_ , has she?”

“Not that I’ve heard of. Not from our guys, anyway. Can’t speak for the other things she deals with, of course. It’s just … Oh, hell, I don’t know. Just a feeling, I guess. Like something’s off about her. No one who’s used her’s gone back a second time, and it ain’t ‘cause she didn’t deliver.” Bobby exhaled shortly, frustrated. “Never mind. I’m probably being an idiot. Just watch yourself, okay?”

“Will do. Thanks, Bobby.”

“Thank me later.” Bobby grunted darkly.

Sam smiled as he hung up. Ever since their dad had died, Bobby had taken to looking after them. Maybe because he felt guilty about not patching things up with John before those last few days. Or about supplying the stuff John needed to summon the demon in the first place. Whatever was fueling it, sometimes the man could be worse than a mother hen.

So this woman was a little weird. Who in their line of work wasn’t? Besides, it wasn’t like they had all that many options here. Sam shook his head and turned to Dean, tossing the cell onto the bed.

“What do you think?”

“It’s a woman, Sammy.” Dean’s voice was deeper nowadays, husky with pain and desire. His hands unclenched and clenched into fists, curling around the paper as though he could knead the woman out from the lines of her name.

“She’s the only lead we’ve found all week, man.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Dean didn’t move or look up at Sam, but he stopped crushing the paper. Now he had smoothed it out on the bed in front of him and was drawing his fingertips across it lightly. What Sam could see of his brother’s face was distant and hungry, and he knew that Dean wasn’t seeing the paper, not anymore. There was a woman spread out beneath him now, skin flushed and shivering beneath his hands.

“We’re going,” Sam announced loudly.

Dean startled at that, his hands stilling as he tilted his head up. “Come again?”

“We’re going,” Sam repeated. “To see her.” He leaned forward and snagged the paper, careful not to touch his brother. Dean's skin had gotten painfully sensitive in the last day or so. “To see Rachel Harlon.”

“You can’t be serious. If you haven’t noticed, I’m having a little problem with women these days.”

“Which is why we’re going.”

Sam turned away to start gathering their things together. A week spent in one place and their possessions had exploded into the strangest places. He grimaced as he pulled one of Dean’s socks out from behind the radiator.

“We’ve been looking for answers all week and come up with nothing," he continued. "Unless you want to take a vow of celibacy and move to a monastery, she’s our only option.” He tilted his head, considering. “Actually, that probably wouldn’t work either. Remember that guy in Farmer’s Valley?”

“Sam.” The naked pain in Dean’s voice cut through Sam’s monologue and he turned sharply. His stomach plummeted when he saw his brother's face.

Dean's eyes were slightly unfocused, his pupils blown into wide disks ringed with green so bright it seemed to glow. Actually, considering matters, Sam wasn’t so sure his brother's eyes weren’t glowing. It would be the least of their problems.

It wasn’t Dean's eyes that stopped Sam, though, or not just the eyes. It was something in the way his brother was holding himself: in the way his lips, pressed into a tight line, twisted slightly downward. He looked like a man who was drowning, miles from shore.

“What’s wrong?”

Even with the expression on Dean’s face, Sam half-expected a snappy retort— _you mean aside from turning into Hell’s gift to women?_ —but Dean just regarded him steadily and said, “I can’t.”

“What?”

“I can’t do this. I—” Running one hand through his close-cropped hair, he took a shuddering breath. “I don’t trust myself anymore. If she—” He swallowed thickly and then blurted, “I’ll fuck her. Willing or not. Rape or not. Because I can’t control it anymore. And part of me doesn’t care.”

Dean’s confession froze the lump of anxiety that had been lodged in Sam’s stomach all week into ice. He tried to speak—to comfort Dean with promises that everything was going to be okay—but couldn’t find anything to say. And he wanted, desperately, to say _something_ just so that he could stop Dean from saying whatever he was about to.

But Dean didn’t say anything. Instead, he stood up and walked across the room to his duffle, moving carefully as though someone had hit him low and hard. When he turned around and came back to Sam, he was holding the Colt .45 that John had given him when he turned sixteen: the first gun he'd ever owned. He stood there with his hand outstretched and the gun held between them like some kind of twisted offering. Waiting.

“No.”

Dean’s face darkened, his anger igniting in a cloud of sulfur. He stepped forward, shoving the gun at Sam’s chest. “Take it, damn it!”

Sam’s paralysis broke at the feel of the Colt’s hard outline against his skin. He grabbed Dean’s wrist and twisted sharply, squeezing the pressure points to unlock his brother's muscles. The gun feel to the carpet and Dean shuddered, that sulfur scent pulsing around him like a second heartbeat. Dean’s skin was burning, almost too hot to touch, and Sam wondered that his brother wasn’t sweating because he was burning up inside: he was a fucking furnace.

“We’re going to fix this,” Sam insisted, keeping his voice low and controlled. “We’re going to see Rachel Harlon and she’s going to fix you.”

Dean shook his head once, a violent denial, and Sam tightened his grip on Dean’s hand, eliciting a sharp moan. The sound was more than half-filled with pleasure, and Sam pressed harder, pushing through the cobwebs of demon-induced desire with the _righthererightnow_ tonic of pain. Dean gasped and shoved his head back, eyes watering but clear for the first time in days.

“You can stay in the car, Dean. You don’t have to come in with me: I can talk to her on my own. And if she needs to see you, I can—we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. But I won’t let you hurt her. I promise. I’ll knock you out if I have to—hell, I’ll handcuff you to the fucking car—but I won’t let you hurt her and I am _not_ shooting you. We’re going to beat this thing, all right?”

Dean gave a slow nod, holding the rest of his body painfully still. When Sam released his wrists, his eyes fogged over immediately.

Sam watched as his brother limped over to the bed and crawled into it. Watched Dean curl himself into a ball, his breath coming shallow and rapid. _We are so screwed_ , he thought hollowly.

For the first time, the irony of that concept paired with their situation just didn’t seem all that funny.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean was wrapped in a blanket stolen from the hotel when they pulled up in front of Rachel’s house two days later, despite the fact that Sam could feel the heat coming off of his brother’s body from the driver’s seat. It was like having a small radiator or a lit fireplace in the car with him, and he’d been running the air conditioner on high all day. Dean didn’t seem to notice it. He wasn’t noticing much of anything anymore. For the last four hours Dean had been locked in a desire-fueled haze, body racked with muscle spasms.

Sam reached over and stopped short of actually touching his brother, hand held just a few inches above his shoulder. “Dean,” he said gently. “We’re here. _Dean_.”

Dean turned his head slowly toward Sam, emerging from himself, and then went on point with a speed that made Sam jump. He knew, even before she tapped on the window, that there was a woman standing outside the car. He could smell it in the air, which was tinged with sulfur and a heavier, musky scent that was Dean himself. He could see her reflected in Dean’s eyes. The tap came, inquisitive.

“Sam.” Dean’s voice was hard and tight: a warning.

Sam didn’t hesitate, stretching his arm across Dean's throat and pressing him back into the seat. Dean heaved against the restraint, his eyes still locked on a point past Sam. It was as though he didn’t even register the arm cutting off his airflow.

It wasn’t until he was moments from passing out that his hands came up, dreamily, to pull at Sam’s arm. Sam leaned a little harder and Dean drooped against him suddenly, dead weight. Sam released him, checked for a pulse. Only when he had found the slow, steady beat of his brother's heart, did he turn to the woman on the other side of the glass.

She was short, with grey-streaked brown hair—bad dye job—that curled messily around her face. A little on the plump side and wearing an orange and purple blouse loud enough to wake the dead. Not his brother’s usual type.

 _Lo how the mighty have fallen._ Sam smiled humorlessly.

She had been looking at Dean, but now she turned her attention to Sam and he saw that her eyes were blue: still young and bright, and kind. There was pity there, and compassion.

Sam thought about what Bobby had told him and then dismissed it. This woman didn’t seem dangerous. Maybe she was just in this for the money, but that wasn’t a crime: people couldn’t survive on goodwill alone. And if she wasn’t careful about who she helped, then maybe that was just a case of not being able to turn away anyone in need. She certainly seemed the type for it.

He rolled down the window. “Rachel Harlon?”

“Yup. You must be Sam and Dean.” Her eyes went back to Dean. “Bobby didn’t say it was an incubus.”

“I didn’t tell him. Dean … didn’t want him to know.” He drew a hand over his face, rubbing at his eyes. “Hell, it took him a week to admit what was going on to me.”

“Stubborn,” Rachel commented. She frowned, eyes still on Dean. The expression on her face puzzled Sam; it was as though she were trying to remember where she had seen his brother before. Maybe she was: they’d been through this way before, with their father.

“You’d better bring him inside before the neighbors get a look at him. Gina Keitel just turned seventeen last month; she doesn’t need any help with her hormones.”

“She—wait a minute, how is it that you’re not affected?”

Rachel snorted. “You want to jump his bones like some horny prom queen in the back of her boyfriend’s pickup?”

“He’s my brother,” Sam responded, slightly taken aback. “And I’m not gay.”

“Well, I am. Now get him in the house before someone sees him and we have a Situation on our hands. Keep the blanket. It should help keep him hidden.”

Sam obeyed wordlessly, cradling Dean to his chest. He followed Rachel up the walk to her house, most of his attention on his brother, who seemed to have lost weight: surely Dean had weighed more than this when Sam had to carry him out of that pooka’s lair three weeks ago. He didn’t miss the way that, even unconscious, Dean’s head swiveled toward Rachel wherever she moved. When Sam had to brush by her into the house as she held the door open for him, his brother stirred restlessly in his arms.

“On the couch is good. Through there on your right.”

Sam ducked into the living room—damn low ceilings in these old houses—and lay Dean down onto the faded blue couch. Rachel followed, squatting to get a better look at her patient. Even though he was still definitely out of the game, Dean lifted one hand to reach for her. Sam hastily pushed his brother’s hand back down on his own chest, and then sat down on the couch next to him, ignoring the heat from Dean’s skin as it baked into his side and back.

“Where’s the bite?” Rachel asked, scanning what she could see of Dean.

“The bite?” Sam repeated numbly.

Rachel sighed and then said with exaggerated patience, “I need to see the bite if I’m going to help him. Where was he bitten?”

“Ummm …” Sam scrunched his face up as he wracked his memory. It hurt to think back to that night: to think that, if he had just gotten there a little sooner, Dean would have been okay.

 _Running up the stairs in the abandoned factory. Moonlight gouges across the walls and floor. Door at the top of the stairs. Shouting from behind it. Dean. He sounds pissed. Throwing the door open. Smooth black head thrown back to strike. Dean, pinned to a peeling wall with blood dripping off him. Stomach. Leg. Head. Shoulder. Long teeth, dark with blood, snapping inches from Dean’s face._

“Sam?”

“I don’t know,” Sam admitted.

“You haven’t looked?”

Sam flushed, ashamed and guilty. “There was this ritual, to make sure it didn’t come back—the incubus, I mean. I dropped Dean off at the motel and went back to finish. He’d already patched himself up when I got back. Told me he got bit, a few scratches. He seemed fine and I was tired so I didn’t push it. Then, later, I didn’t think it mattered. The damage was already done, right?”

The hard glint in Rachel’s eye softened. “I suppose you get banged up a bit in your line of work. No way you could have known it was any different this time.”

 _But I should have known. I should have made him show me._ Sam kept his mouth shut.

“Well, let’s get this over with.” Rachel pushed herself to her feet and backed away, ignoring Dean’s grunt of protest. “Strip him.”

Sam blinked at her. He couldn’t have heard her right. Dean was always saying that one of these days he’d go deaf under all that hair. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I need to take a look at the bite, and in order to do that we’re going to have to find it. Which I can’t do through layers of clothing.”

“I, uh …” Sam glanced down at Dean, still swaddled in their stolen blanket.

“Look, Sam, I’d do it myself but I think he might get the wrong idea.”

Sam swallowed. “Okay. Fine. I can do this.”

He pushed himself up and then stood, looking down at his brother. After a moment’s hesitation he reached forward and peeled away the blanket, then leaned back to survey his work. Blanket down. Everything else to go. His hands flexed nervously.

If he took Dean's shirts off first, maybe they would get lucky and it’d be there. Or he could start with his shoes. Maybe the incubus tried to eat Dean’s toes when he kicked it in the face. He realized he was stalling and tightened his hands into fists.

What the hell was wrong with him? It was just his brother here. Just Dean. And it wasn’t as though he hadn’t seen Dean naked before, damn it. After all, you only got so much privacy when you spent all your time in a car and various motel rooms.

Of course, he’d never actually undressed his brother before. And doing it now, in front of a strange woman while his brother lay unconscious on her couch, seemed wrong on so many levels. Chiefly, though, Sam thought that he was bothered by the invasion of privacy.

Dean didn’t have much in the way of possessions. Guns, holy water, ritual and textbooks. The Impala. All of which he had to share with Sam. But his body was his own, marked with the scars of the war he fought: a map of his life inked on his skin in blood. As much as he joked that chicks dug scars, Sam knew that those marks—that pain—was private. They were Dean’s and no one else’s. And now Sam was going to unwrap him and display him in front of a stranger. Dean would kill him when he woke up and got back to normal.

 _These lines on his right arm? Poltergeist in Pittsburgh tossed a couple of knives at him. Long slash, lower left stomach? He almost got disemboweled by a couple of ghouls in Haverfield. Twisting scar on his upper thigh? We were cleaning out a nest of imps from a church steeple in Amherst and a couple of them tripped him. He went right over the edge and almost impaled himself on the fence. A few more centimeters to the left and he would have bled out before we got him to the hospital. Just another day in the life of Dean Winchester._

Dean moaned, neck straining as he twisted his head to follow Rachel, who was crossing the room to a cabinet set against the far wall. Sam set his jaw. Dean was just going to have to live with Sam exposing him to a strange woman old enough to be their mother.

Shirts first, then.

Sam pulled Dean out of his coat and the flannel button-down shirt easily and then cursed when he rolled his brother’s t-shirt off. _Damn it, Dean! Why can’t you ever tell me anything? Why do I always have to drag it out of you like a goddamned mule?_

“What is it?” He sensed Rachel at his shoulder and heard her indrawn breath as she craned her head around Sam’s body and got a good look at Dean. Then: “The rest of it. I have to see what I’m dealing with.” She left him alone again and went back to rummaging through the cabinet, more purposefully now.

When Dean finally lay naked on the couch and Sam had taken the final tallies, he figured that Dean owed him big this time. Like, Coldplay marathon big. Because this? This was not just being incommunicative, this was lying by omission. Hell, lying _outright_ because every time they’d talked about it, they’d used the word 'bite', singular.

There were four bites on Dean’s body, each surrounded by skin a shocking white-blue color that was cold to the touch. The worst was on his shoulder: it looked like the damned thing had clamped down and worried at the skin there, working its teeth in down to the bone. There were two more on his left side, both next to each other as though it had gotten a snap in and then slipped off before biting down again. The last, and the shallowest, was on his upper thigh, laid down across the old scar from the imp nest.

“Jesus wept,” Rachel murmured from beside Sam. “How long did you say it’s been since he was bitten?”

“Two weeks and three days.”

“And he hasn’t touched a woman since he was infected? You’re certain?” That look was back on her face, as though there was something familiar about Dean—something she couldn’t place. Sam felt a flash of uneasiness and pushed it away.

 _Bobby was just mother henning again,_ he told himself sternly. _She isn’t doing anything to Dean—she’s just looking at him for christsakes: plenty of women have done it._

“Sam? I asked you a question.”

Oh, right. “He says he hasn’t and I believe him. He wouldn’t lie.” He laughed bitterly. “Not about that, anyway. Could he have hurt someone?”

Rachel pursed her lips. “I’m not sure. Demon aspects are a tricky business. What symptoms has he shown? Anything beyond the unquenchable lust and the siren song?”

Sam cleared his throat, shoving the sick quesiness back down into his stomach where it belonged. “He’s stronger. And faster.” He gestured to his nose. “We were screwing around and I ducked when I should have dodged and he scored a solid hit on me. Dean’s got more control than that, usually, no matter how pissed he is. I think his reflexes were off because of this Demon Aspect thing. He had more speed than he’s used to, and then more power behind the punch.”

Rachel frowned. “Anything else?”

“He’s been moody, but that could just be Dean being Dean. And it smells like sulfer when he gets worked up. It mostly happens when he gets pissed off, but I smelled it in the car when he saw you, and that sure as hell wasn’t anger.”

Rachel stood there for a long moment, looking at Dean so hard that Sam thought she was trying to see right through him, and then she shook her head and turned away.

“Can’t be,” Sam heard her mutter to herself.

He trotted after her. “What?”

“Mmm?”

“You said it couldn’t be. What can’t be? Is something wrong with Dean? Something else?”

Rachel jerked to a stop and looked at him sharply. Sam was suddenly sure that he hadn’t been meant to hear that. Then she shrugged and started forward again. “You’re sure there was only one? One incubus? It wasn’t a nest?”

“Why, what’s wrong? You can help him, can’t you?” He hated how lost he sounded, how helpless. He could tell that there was something she wasn’t telling him: something about Dean. Bobby’s warning nagged at him.

“Sam.”

“Yeah, all right? I only saw one.”

“There’s a big difference between you only seeing one and there only being one.” Rachel stopped in the front hall next to an old-fashioned phone.

“Thing is, the Aspect is called _Aspect_ because it’s singular. One thing. One mark that you’ve been tainted by the forces of Hell. Horns, a tail, sulfur-scent, heightened senses, super-human speed or strength.” She ticked them off on her fingers, regarding Sam steadily. “No one gets everything.”

“By my count, Dean has four aspects: speed, strength, sulfur and siren-song—the lust generally comes complementary when you’re dealing with incubi. Four aspects to match his four marks.”

She turned back to the phone and lifted the receiver, dialing as she spoke.

“Unless I’m missing something here, then your brother has been suffering the effects of four separate Aspects—Max? It’s Rachel ... I’m doing well, thanks. Yourself? ... Glad to hear it. Listen, Max, I can’t chat right now; I’m calling about that favor.” She listened for a moment and then nodded. “You’re right, I am glad you offered. I’m not so sure you will be, though. How soon can you be here? ... Six? ... All right, we’ll be expecting you.”

Hanging up, she turned back toward the living room.

“Now that’s settled, let’s get Dean secured somewhere he won’t be able to do any harm.”

“Who was that?”

“A friend I helped out a while back who’s going to help us with your brother.” She eyed Sam, sizing him up, and then shook her head. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know when Max gets here.”

“Why not now?” he pressed. _You be careful with this woman,_ Bobby had said.

“Because you aren’t going to like it, and I don’t want to spend all day arguing with you about it.” Before Sam could protest that he had a right to know what was going on here—this was his brother they were talking about—she added, “You brought Dean here so I could help him. I’m doing that. But I don’t want to have to fight you on everything.”

“You won’t. Just tell me what’s happening.” _Please tell me because if you don’t, I’m taking Dean and I’m leaving. Only chance at helping him or not. Because I’m starting to think that Bobby was right, and something’s wrong here._

“I’m doing what I can to help your brother, Sam. That’s what’s happening.”

Fixed by her gaze, Sam felt his objections slide away. She was right: she was trying to help Dean. It didn’t really matter whether she told him what she was planning on doing for him now or later. He smiled to himself. Must be mellowing in his old age. He never would have let his dad get away with this kind of secrecy. Or maybe Dean was rubbing off on him.

At his silence, Rachel smiled and patted his arm. “There’s a boy. Now, I need you to carry Dean downstairs. My workshop’s there, and I’m used to dealing with … reluctant customers, so we should be set. Don’t bother dressing him, we’re just going to have to strip him again. And be careful of those bites.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There first thing he noticed as he carried Dean down into the basement was that it was a hell of a lot bigger than the house: whoever built this place must have undermined the entire property with the thing. The second was that there were chains in the cellar, bolted into wall. Sam shot Rachel—mousy, motherly-looking Rachel—a look, and she shook her head.

“You don’t want to know, Sam, trust me.”

“Why should I?” Sam hesitated on the last step, trying to judge his chances of getting back up the stairs and outside with Dean at a dead run and not falling on his face.

Rachel smiled humorlessly. “Then trust Bobby. He’s the one who referred you to me.”

Bobby. Bobby had called and told Sam that he’d found someone to help Dean. Then he’d said …

Rachel’s blue eyes bored into Sam’s and he found himself carrying Dean over toward the chains. He was still nervous, more so when he got close enough to see the dark stains on the unfinished wall and the gouges taken out of the stone, but it didn’t matter.

After all, there wasn’t really any other option. It was this or take his brother back to some crummy motel where he could finish going quietly mad until he either found some way to end himself or convinced Sam to shoot him. Sam supposed that he would go with what was behind door number one.

Rachel threw a blanket down over the floor and gestured for him to lay Dean on top of it. Sam did so, kneeling down next to his brother and running one hand nervously along one of the chains. It was obvious from the metal collars attached to the ends of some of them that Rachel had designed her set-up for human and non-human alike. She scuffed through them and then nudged two of the cuffs with one foot.

“Here. These should do. I got Father Harry down at the church to bless them for me a few years back.”

Sam stopped dead in the middle of reaching for them at that. “This isn’t going to hurt him, is it?”

He and Dean had been especially careful with their blessed paraphernalia all week just in case Dean was changed enough for it to be a problem.

Rachel shook her head. “Should slow him down some, weaken him a bit. Otherwise, he’ll be fine. Or, well, no different. Now snap those on him and we’ll head upstairs for a bit of tea while we wait for Max. If you’re hungry, I’ve got cookies.”


	3. Chapter 3

Max was late. By six-forty-five, Sam was well on his way to going insane, watching Dean pace like a caged animal at the other end of the basement. His brother’s eyes were locked on Rachel, following her as she moved around the room, presumably gathering things she was going to need to do something about Dean. Whenever she got within ten feet of him, Dean went absolutely still, every muscle rigid with tension. Waiting for her to come close enough to grab.

Sam had thought the chains a little extreme when he first saw them, but now he was only worried that they would hold long enough for Rachel to finish whatever she was planning. Every time Dean strained against them, the metal creaked alarmingly, and when he lunged forward, the grate of the metal chain pulling against its fixture in the wall made Sam wince. And he’d gone past embarrassed for his brother’s dignity to alarmed for his health hours ago.

Dean had been raring and ready to go when Sam had undressed him upstairs, and he was still in the same state. Sam’s groin ached in sympathy: male bodies weren’t built to sustain that kind of abuse. If Dean’s problem had been a simple case of Viagra gone wrong, they would have taken him to the hospital hours ago. But of course, modern medicine didn’t have much in the way of cures for Aspect of the Demon.

As Dean lunged again, and a small drift of powder floated down from around the shackles’ wall fixture, Sam cleared his mouth and asked the question he’d been brooding on since three o’clock.

“How long do you think he’s been like this?”

Rachel, browsing through several packets of dried herbs raised her head and looked at him. “Two weeks and three days.”

Sam made a curt gesture of impatience with his right hand. “No, I mean how long has he…” He cleared his throat meaningfully. Rachel was looking at him steadily, herb packets still in hand, waiting.

God, was she going to make him say it? It was one thing to joke around with Dean about boners and stiffies and flagpoles, but it was quite a different matter to ask a fifty-five year-old woman you just met about your brother’s on-going erection while said brother was standing thirty feet away from you.

Sam tried again. “How long has he been…happy.” Rachel was still regarding him blankly and he felt a flush creeping over his cheeks. Was she being this obtuse deliberately?

But just as he was floundering around for another euphamism, her face cleared and she said, “Oh. How long has he been in a state of arousal?”

Sam was certain he was blushing as he nodded.

Rachel nodded and went back to sorting through the herb packets. “Two weeks.”

Sam frowned. Dean had mentioned something when he had finally admitted something was wrong, but that couldn’t be what he meant. Sam glanced at Dean and then back to Rachel. “I, uh, don’t think we’re on the same page here,” he started.

“You wanted to know how long Dean has been erect, sporting a woody, propping the tent, sprou—”

“Yes!” Sam interrupted hastily before she could continue the list.

Rachel shrugged. “Two weeks.”

“But that’s medically impossible. He’d be…” What, dead? Could you die from an erection? God, what a ghastly thought.

“I suspect that the Aspect is preventing his body from shutting the process down.”

“He can’t have been like this for two weeks!” Sam insisted. “I would have noticed.”

“Oh, really. Make a habit of staring at your brother’s crotch, do you?”

Well, no, but that was so not the point. Also, he realized as he bit back on another protestation, it was so not something he wanted to get into with Rachel. So he settled back to wait, but her words kept running around his mind in an insipid chant. _Two weeks, two weeks, two weeks._

“Wouldn’t that _hurt_?” he blurted.

Rachel favored him with another expressionless glance. “I wouldn’t know. God never favored me with the correct equipment. Based on my readings, however, and those tasteless Viagra commercials cable subjects us to these days, I would wager that the answer is yes, despite whatever the Aspect is doing to keep his…equipment healthy.”

She looked at Dean then, the first time she’d acknowledged his presence since Sam had snapped the shackles shut. She’d been almost religiously ignoring him. Sam as well.

“I’d imagine it’s really rather excruciating by now. That’s why I asked if he had really been as chaste as you claim. Your brother has an excessive amount of self-restraint.”

“He has an excessive martyr complex,” Sam said bitterly. Rachel turned to him, face shocked, and he amended, in a lighter, falsely cheerful voice, “Or a God complex. Actually, that’s more appropriate for Dean. He likes to think he’s like God. He goes where he wants to go and does what he wants to do. That kind of thing. Or maybe that’s Wolverine.” Sam realized he was babbling and forcing himself to snap his mouth shut.

He wished he hadn’t asked Rachel that stupid question. Then he wouldn’t be running his mouth of about any old thing just to keep from imagining exactly what a two week long erection would feel like.

Rachel was still staring at him with that stunned expression on her face. Sam wondered how he’d offended her so deeply. Because he was complaining about his brother? Couldn’t be: everyone did that. Maybe she was deeply religious: didn’t like to hear people joking about God. But he hadn’t seen any crosses in the house, no indication that he was dealing with a holy woman. Just as he was starting to become uncomfortable, she smiled softly and said, “Interesting,” and then turned her back on him to delve into a cardboard box.

Okay, weird. But really no weirder than some of the other people in their line of work that he and Dean had dealt with over the years. Sam was just going to have to stop jumping at shadows. Bobby had recommended her, he had told Sam… Rachel glanced up at him, frowning, and Sam hunched his shoulders.

When she looked down again, he put his head in his hands and leaned forward, massaging his temples where a faint headache was blooming. This wasn’t happening. Dean hadn’t turned into some sex-crazed, demon-powered maniac. They hadn’t stolen a blanket so that they wouldn’t be hunted down and ripped to shreds by every female with a pulse in the county. And Sam certainly hadn’t just had a conversation about the state of his brother’s penis.

The doorbell rang and Sam was out of his chair and half-way up the stairs before Rachel had straightened from her inspection of the box. Max. “I’ll let him in.”

Sam raced up the rest of the stairs and down the short hall to the front door, tossing it open without a pause. And stopped, nonplussed, to regard the petite redhead on the front step. His mouth worked for a moment without producing any sound, and then he shook his head slightly and asked, “Can I help you?”

Max was really late now, and Sam was going to strangle the man for making him wait so long once Dean was fixed. Too bad Dean wasn’t fixed now: this girl was just his type, insofar as Dean had a type. Slender, beautiful, and curvy in all the right places. Also, she looked easy. A skirt so short Sam suspected he’d see her underwear if she moved her legs the wrong way and so tight it must have been poured on. Low, sleeveless shirt displaying mounds of cleavage. Knee high black stiletto-heeled boots. In fact, if Sam had been, say, Dean, and he’d run into the girl in a different type of neighborhood, he would have thought she was a hooker.

“I’m Michelle Stevens,” the girl said, smiling up at Sam. “Ms. Harlon called and asked me to come over.” She started forward and Sam slid sideways automatically, blocking her path.

“I’m sorry, there must have been some kind of mistake,” he began. “Ms. Harlon is—”

“Delighted to see you again, dear,” Rachel cut in smoothly from behind him. She put one hand on Sam’s arm and gently but firmly pushed him aside. “Come on into the living room.”

The girl grinned widely at Sam as she stepped inside, brushing up against him with a glance that said it had been deliberate. Besides, Sam didn’t take up _that_ much room; she could have gone around him.

He couldn’t seem to understand why he was still standing by the open door a few minutes later, listening to two female—female!—voices raised in conversation in the living room where he had stripped his brother earlier that afternoon. Wait. Something about that thought was important. That he had been here since afternoon? No, not quite. Something else—something about Dean, probably: the jerk was always getting himself in some kind of troub… Oh. Oh _fuck_.

The way he slammed the door probably warned them that he was coming, but they were still chatting away like best friends when he rounded the doorframe.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, bringing her in here?” he shouted, striding into the living room. “Who the hell is she? Where the hell is Max? And when the hell are you going to do something about Dean?”

“I think Hell is already involved in this matter enough without invoking it by name, Sam,” Rachel commented. Her eyes and voice were calm, but Michelle was regarding Sam warily, nothing like the kittenish eyes she had been making at him moments ago. Chalk another one up to the Sam Winchester charm.

“What the _fuck_ is going on, then,” Sam snapped.

Rachel sighed. “Sam, this is Max. Max, this is Sam Winchester. His brother got into a little bit of a mess and Sam brought him to me for help.”

Michelle—Max—nodded. “Oh, like what happened with me, right?”

“Not exactly, but in the same realm, yes.”

“You’re Max?” Sam asked. He was having trouble keeping up with the conversation.

“Yeah. My friends call me that. Stupid nickname, hunh?”

Which, okay, yeah. Sam knew that girls could be Maxes too, even if he’d never met one, but Dean was… and she was… “So you’re gay then, right?” he tried. There had to be a logical explanation why Rachel had brought a girl here to help his incubus-infected brother. “I mean a lesbian?”

For some reason, that question made Max smirk up at him. “Why, you have something in mind, sugar?”

“Max, can you please leave any business you might want to transact until after I’ve collected my favor?”

Max’s grin widened. “Sure thing, Ms. Hanson, although it’s looking to me like you’re the one doing me a favor.” She flicked her eyes up and down Sam’s body. “Have you seen some of the trolls who hang down by 57th lately?”

“Sam isn’t the favor, dear.”

“Oh.”

Did she… did she sound _disappointed_? And what did Rachel mean by _‘Sam’s not the favor’_ , anyway?

“So who is it?” Max continued brightly.

“His name’s Dean…”

“Your brother, right?” Max looked up at Sam again, her eyes speculative. “I do two-for-one specials, you know.”

Sam’s brain shut down. Which was why he was completely not responsible for what came out of his mouth at that particular moment.

“ _You brought a whore here to fuck Dean_?” And yeah, he could have said that a little louder. Some deaf guy over in China might not have heard him.

Max didn’t look offended by his question. In fact, she was looking downright amused. Oh, Dean would love her. _God, don’t go there, Sam_.

Rachel only nodded. “I did. She’s healthy, Sam. You don’t need to be concerned for your brother’s health.”

Sam wasn’t. Not right then. He was concerned with Dean’s humanity and his own sanity. Simple problems like herpes or syphilis could just wait their turn.

“This isn’t happening,” he said mildly.

“Don’t be foolish, Sam. You’ve seen the state your brother’s in. I need some more details about what happened before I try anything, and as I can’t get them from you, I’m going to have to get them directly from the source: from Dean. And I can’t question a man whose entire brain is devoted to lower functions.”

“Good luck with Dean, then.” But he was caving. He could feel it happening as he looked into Rachel’s kind eyes. This was what Dean needed, right? So that Rachel could fix him? Where was the problem here?

Rachel smiled at him. “There’s a boy.” Sam stood docilely in the middle of the room, not sure what to do with himself, as she turned her attention back to Max. “As I said, his name is Dean and he’s in a little bit of trouble. Had a run-in with an incubus.”

“A what?”

“Sex demon.”

“Oh.” Max considered that. “This isn’t going to do anything to me, is it?”

“Of course not,” Rachel scoffed. “He’s completely harmless.”

Sam snorted.

“But just in case,” Rachel continued, ignoring him, “I have this pill for you to take. It should make you immune to any influence he would otherwise have over you.” She reached into one pocket and pulled out a small cloth bag.

“Magic pill, hunh?” Max smiled as she accepted the bag and fished out the small brown pellet of herbs inside it. She popped the pellet in her mouth and dry-swallowed, making a face instantly. “Tastes like shit.”

“All the best things do,” Rachel assured her.

Max tossed her head and pushed herself up from the couch. “So, which way to the damsel in distress—so to speak?”

“He’s in the basement.”

“Anything else I should know?”

Rachel hesitated. “He may be a little rough, but he won’t hurt you. Just let him—”

“Dip his wick—”

Sam jumped.

“—yeah, right, I’ve got it.” Max strolled out past Sam, giving him a wink as she went.

“Perhaps you should go with her,” Rachel suggested.

“I—wait, what? She’s going down there to… to…”

“Sleep with your brother, yes. But I’m not entirely certain that Dean will be able to control himself, and I’m asking you to be there in case Max needs rescuing.”

“Rescuing?” That cut through his mental fog. “You think Dean will hurt her?” Because if that was the case, Sam was going to march right down there and carry Max outside. He’d promised Dean.

“That isn’t what I said. They’ll be fine. I just like to have safe-guards in place. Murphy’s law, you know.”

Okay, that was all right then. As long as Sam trusted her. Which he supposed he was doing, since he had chained his brother up in her basement. Besides, she had such kind eyes. “I’m not watching.”

“That’s fine. I’m sure you’ll be able to hear if anything goes wrong. Don’t hesitate to call if you need me, and let me know when he’s done.” She wandered off toward the back of the house, leaving Sam to trudge begrudgingly back to the basement.

Max was standing at the base of the stairs, eyeing Dean and peeling off her clothes. Sam averted his eyes and found himself staring at his naked, straining brother, averted them the other way and caught an eyeful of bare breasts. He shut his eyes and felt the rest of his way down.

“You gonna watch?” Max’s breath was moist against his neck and he jumped, almost tripping over his own feet.

“Not if you paid me. Rachel sent me down to make sure you were okay.”

“Well, thanks.” Cool lips brushed his cheek, and something else rested briefly on his arm.

“Oh, hey!” he yelped, moving away quickly. “That’s really not necessary.”

“You’re cute when you blush. Even with the nose. What happened there, anyway? Bullies jump you and steal your lunch money?”

“Are you sure you aren’t gay?”

She laughed. “Why?”

“Because my brother’s over there completely naked and you’re pretty much ignoring him. Even when he’s not channeling an incubus, not a lot of women do that.”

He could feel her grin like a presence on his skin. “That’s because I like a challenge. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Ms. Hanson can call in as many favors as she likes if they look like him.” She chuckled. “I may actually have to pay her for this one, ‘stead of the other way round.”

He felt her moving away then, and blindly felt his way over to the chair he knew was there. The chains went dead silent on his way over, and he was just sitting down when he heard it. A half-smothered startled gasp, accompanied by a loud crack, and one eye flipped open long enough to register that Dean had finally pulled the chains loose from the wall before he shut it again and resolutely turned his chair around to face the wall.

And then he proceeded to not listen to his brother having sex with a prostitute that had, only moments before, been coming on to _him_.

For five hours.

The grunting and panting had slowed yet again, and Sam was waiting for it to start up again, when he heard, faintly, “Say, what’s a guy like me doing in a nice girl like you?”

Which greatly tempered his relief at hearing his brother’s voice again.

“Dude, I’m in here,” he announced loudly. “Think you could maybe tone it down?”

Max made a moan that was half-purr at the same time as Dean said, in an appalled voice, “Sammy?”

Then there was a groan of protest from Max and the sound of scrambling to the accompaniment of chains.

“Where the hell are my clothes? And why the fuck am I chained up?” A pause. “And who’s the redhead?”

There was a prompt, exhaustion-slurred reply of, “Name’s Max. Y’can call me anyt’me.”

“We’re at Rachel Hanson’s, remember? You got bitten by an incubus.” Sarcastic stress on the “an” of course. Because Sam was just forced to listen to his brother having sex for five fucking hours and he was in no mood to coddle Dean. Said brother. Who owed him. Majorly. Speaking of… “Dude, you realize this counts as, like, five years of radio control?”

“Complain later, clothes now. Also a towel, maybe. No, make that a few.”

Sam resisted the urge to throttle his brother, but only because his eyes were still firmly shut.

“I take it you’re feeling better.” Rachel’s voice. Oh good. Now Sam wouldn’t have to crawl up the stairs with his eyes shut in front of Dean.

“Oh, ah—Sam. Clothes. Now.” Was Dean actually flustered? That had to be a first.

“You haven’t got anything I haven’t seen before. This is my house, and you’ve been here all day.”

“ _Naked?_ ” Dean asked incredulously.

“Ms. Hanson?”

“Yes, Max.”

“I think I owe you, like, a million and one favors.”

“Oh, I think we’ll just consider ourselves even.”

“Then can I have the boy instead?”

“Hey! I’m standing right here. And still naked. Are we having a communication problem, Sammy?”

Sam put his head down in his hands and laughed hysterically.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Max was upstairs, sleeping in one of Rachel’s guest rooms: she hadn’t exactly been in any condition to walk home. To walk anywhere for that matter. Sam had carried her—dressed in one of Rachel’s old nightgowns—upstairs. Dean, professing exhaustion (but really, Sam thought privately, feeling more than a little guilty about screwing a girl while he was under demonic influence), had stayed away, hunched in the short robe that Rachel allowed him.

Now he was sitting on the couch again, stuffing cookies into his mouth greedily, with two of Rachel’s afghans wrapped around him. Sam sat next to him, relieved that he could no longer feel heat coming off of his brother like the summer sun. It was only a matter of time until it came back, though. Sam could tell from the deepening creases at the corners of Dean’s eyes that the demonic pull was already returning.

Across from them, Rachel was sitting cross-legged on the floor with an open pad on her lap. She hadn’t taken her eyes off of Dean since he’d rejoined the land of the rational. “Are you ready to get down to business, Dean?”

“Sure,” he mumbled around a mouthful of oatmeal and chocolate chip. “These are really good.”

“Thank you, I bought them myself. Now, exactly how many incubi bit you?”

And at the reminder Sam went from relieved and a little amused to furious in one second flat. “Yeah, Dean, how many were there? Only one, right? Cause that’s what you told me.”

Dean’s eyes flicked over to Sam and then cut away. “I never said—”

“Bullshit! You knew what I thought and you let me go on thinking it. That’s the same thing as lying, Dean. You said so yourself.”

“What do you want me to say, Sammy? It happened.”

“When exactly were you going to tell me? Before or after you made me put a bullet in your head?”

Dean’s jaw twitched. “I didn’t think it was important. Besides, it wasn’t any of your business.”

“It _is_ my business, Dean. Things that have to do with the job, things that have to do with your health—that’s exactly my business.”

“I fucked up, okay!” Dean yelled, jumping up and rounding on him. “Is that what you want to hear, Sammy, hunh?” And then, before Sam could say anything, he turned on Rachel. “And you can stop that right fucking now, bitch, or I’ll show you what real human emotion feels like, up close and personal.”

“Dean!” Sam hissed, shocked.

“Fuck off, Sam!” Dean snapped, storming out of the living room.

Sam shot Rachel an apologetic glance and then hurried after his brother. He caught up with Dean in the kitchen, where he was pulling his clothes out of the freezer—and how Dean knew that Rachel had hidden them there, Sam didn’t want to know—and dropping the robe onto the floor.

“What the hell was that about?” Sam demanded.

Dean yanked his jeans up roughly and buttoned them before turning around to face him. His face was furious, eyes so green they burned, and Sam took an instinctive step back.

“We’re leaving. Right now.” He pulled his t-shirt on and reached for the flannel.

“We can’t leave, Dean. Rachel’s the only chance we’ve got to fix this thing.”

“Oh, so we’re on a first name basis already?”

“What the hell’s gotten into you?”

“Yahtzee. Hell’s exactly what got into me.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so angry!”

“Oh, gee, Sam, let me think. I’ve been dragged to some weird chick’s house, chained up in her basement and then rented out by the hour to some local hooker—“

“That’s not what happened, Dean—“

“—and you want to know why I’m angry.”

“—and you know it.”

They stood there for a moment, staring at each other, and then Dean turned away to pick up his coat. Sam jogged around to block him. “We’re not leaving.”

“Oh yes we are.” Dean grabbed for his coat around Sam and Sam hit his arm away, hands automatically snapping up into guard position. Dean clenched his jaw. “That how you want to play it, little brother?” he asked, quietly venomous.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not so little anymore, Dean. And if this is what it’s going to take to make you listen to reason, then that’s fine by me.”

Dean laughed, low and dangerous. “You know what, Sam, you’re really starting to piss me off.”

“Because that’s a new development in the Winchester household, where having your brother turn into a sex demon is an everyday occurrence.”

“Don’t you start that shit! Not everything is about your issues.”

Faint whiff of sulfur.

Sam’s jaw dropped. Dean waited for him to say something and, when he just stood there, made another try past him for the jacket. Sam pushed him back again, testing.

“I mean it, dude! I’m leaving right now, with or without you.” Sulfur swirled through the air, stronger this time.

“You’re not angry,” Sam said.

Dean uttered a hollow laugh. “What is this, Jedi mind tricks? Not gonna work on me, Sammy. Not with pure demon running through my veins.”

“I mean before. You weren’t angry before.”

“If you don’t start making sense, I swear I will drop your ass and drag you out of here.”

Sam breathed in deeply. No sulfur.

“What are you afraid of, Dean? You’re not angry. And don’t try telling me you are because it doesn’t smell like sulfur.”

Dean’s face went dead. “Son of a bitch.”

Sam fumbled forward, grabbing Dean’s shoulder. “Come on, man, please. Just talk to me, will you? What happened in Scarsborough? Did they…” He swallowed thickly. “Did they do something to you?”

“Get your hands off me, Sam. Now.”

“Dean, did they ra—“

“No!” Dean shoved back out of Sam’s reach but didn’t storm out. He stopped just beyond arm’s length and stood there, tiny tremors running through his body. “They didn’t touch me. Not like that.”

“Like what then?” He edged forward when Dean didn’t speak. “Like what, Dean?”

And Dean was actually talking, letting his walls down a bit. Letting Sam in. “When they bit me, that last one—the one you wasted—held me down. It was laughing, Sam. The son of a bitch enjoyed it.”

“You knew, didn’t you? You knew at the factory that they did something to you.”

Dean’s lips twisted in a grimace. “I could feel it inside me. The infection, taint, whatever you want to call it. I thought…” He laughed, a brittle sound. “When the first one bit me I thought I was in Hell. Really in Hell. Because I could feel every filthy thing I’ve ever done. I could see them.”

“And I saw other things too, Sam. Things that I haven’t done yet, but will. And things that I might have done but didn’t. I saw myself killing you. Killing Dad. Killing Mom.”

Sam's chest tightened. “Dean, you were four when she died. No matter what you saw, there was no way you could have—”

“I slit open her stomach with a butcher knife while she was sleeping. And then I let the demon pin her to the ceiling and take you. I put you in the son of a bitch’s arms!”

“No, you didn’t, Dean. I’m here, all right? I’m okay. And you didn’t kill Mom. The demon killed Mom. It killed Jessica. It killed Dad.”

“It did this to me,” Dean said softly. “It wants you to kill me, or for this to drive me insane. Or both.”

Sam frowned, his heart rate quickening. The more Dean talked, the crazier he sounded and the more freaked out Sam felt. “The demon wasn’t there, Dean,” he said softly. “It didn’t do this to you.”

“Don’t patronize me, Sammy,” Dean snarled, and the sulfur smell was suddenly sharp. “You think I don’t know what I’m saying? That I can’t remember what happened and what didn’t because those sons of bitches fucked me over? Well I can’t. But that? It’s the one memory I’m sure of: the demon made damn sure I’d remember. That was the whole point.”

Sam’s mouth was dry. This wasn’t happening. What Dean was saying couldn’t be true, it _couldn’t_ , because then this was Sam’s fault too. Mom, Jessica, Dad dead. Dean like this. His fault.

“You’re not making any sense.” He tried to make his voice strong. Certain.

“No? Then I’ll put it in simple terms so you can understand. The son of a bitch put a hit on me. And those incubi carried it out.” He smiled crookedly. “Oh, and since we’re on the subject, it told them to give me a message for you. Jessica’s roasting in Hell. But don’t worry, it’s keeping a close eye on her, making sure she never gets lonely. Or bored. Pain’s very entertaining, see. If you’re a demon.”

Sam punched him. And then stood pole-axed as Dean stood there, blood dripping from a freshly split lip. He was still smiling.

“ _That_ what you wanted to hear, Sammy?”

“That’s enough.” Rachel was standing in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed in front of her chest.

Dean glanced at her dismissively. “Yeah, it is. I’m out of here. Have a great life, Sammy.”

Dumbfounded, Sam watched as Dean strode away. Dean leaving him. Dean saying that... stuff about Jessica.

Dean got to the kitchen doorway and stopped, not quite touching Rachel. As though he didn't quite dare push past her.

“You aren’t going anywhere until I’ve cleansed you, Dean Winchester.”

“What, you going to stop me?” He snorted. “You’re not allowed. It’s against the rules. Oh well, there’s always next time, right? Maybe then you can round yourself up a few more stellar examples of human frailty. Parade them around at the next cocktail party or wherever the fuck your kind meets. Or maybe—”

Dean’s words cut off mid-flow and he toppled over to the ground. Sam looked down at the frying pan in his hand in horror. Oh God. He just killed his brother. His demonic, possibly possessed brother, but his brother nonetheless.

“Oh my God, _Dean_.” Sam dropped to the floor in a graceless motion and pressed his fingers to Dean’s wrist, feeling for a pulse.

“He’s fine, Sam. Or he will be, anyway.” Rachel was looking down at Dean, face expressionless. “I’m sorry. I truly thought Max would help. But I didn’t know about this Other your brother mentioned. It complicates matters.”

“It was true?” Sam wasn’t sure whether he was asking about Jessica or the part Dean had said the demon had played in all this. He shook his head and forced himself to clarify. Concentrated on the more immediate issue. “The demon did this to him?”

“Set in motion the events that led to your brother’s infection at the very least. Although, judging from his behavior and what he said, there’s more to it than that.”

“How much more?”

“I suspect that this demon used the incubi to transfer some of its essence into Dean.”

Sam’s stomach lurched. “You mean he’s possessed?” He forced the words out.

“Not in the way you mean. A demon’s essence isn’t sentient, apart from the demon it belongs to. It’s mindless, pure evil. Madness. A taint in the truest sense of the world. And somehow this demon arranged for the Aspect to trip its trap.”

“So that when Dean finally gave in…” Sam said slowly.

“The essence would be unleashed and corrupt him,” Rachel finished. “Yes.”

“Can you exorcise it?”

“Yes. It won’t be pleasant, though, and Dean may not thank you for it.”

Sam laughed. “He never thanks me anyway, the jerk.”

“Then bring him back downstairs. Full chains this time. Throat, ankles, wrists. The silver. You can leave his clothes on.”

She turned on her heel and disappeared into the house, leaving Sam to wrestle his brother up into his arms for the third time that day.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam was sitting in a chair just a few feet outside of the salt semicircle waiting for Dean to wake up. Rachel was behind him, mixing something together and humming under her breath. Sam had tried helping her at first, but she had shooed him away, saying that she could handle things and that he should go keep an eye on his brother.

All this waiting was driving him nuts. All he could think about was what Dean had said in the kitchen. About the demon. About Jessica being tortured in Hell for eternity because of him. He had to stop thinking about it or he really would go crazy.

“Why do you do it?” he asked as Rachel knelt by the salt line and reached over it to Dean, finger dripping with something blue and viscous.

“Do what?” She drew her finger across Dean’s forehead, forming a symbol Sam had never seen before with three strokes, and mumbled something under her breath. Dean stirred slightly, but didn’t wake.

“Help people. Try and do something about all the evil in the world.”

She leaned back but didn’t get up. “I don’t.” Her eyes remained fixed on Dean.

“What?”

“I’m not a soldier, Sam.” Something about her words stirred a memory inside him, but he couldn’t quite grasp it. “I’m not even a field medic. This isn’t my war, and I don’t take sides.”

“You mean you help them too? But why? They’re evil, they hurt people—“

“Are they?” Now she did look at Sam, and her eyes were fierce. “You think that the demons in this world chose to be what they are? Do you think they wanted to be murderers and torturers?”

Sam cast his mind back to the lessons Pastor Jim had taught him when he was younger. “They rebelled against God. They’re paying the price for that.”

“Which means, doesn’t it, that God is responsible for this war.”

“No, I didn’t say that.” Sam frowned. “He cast them out, but they didn’t have to become what they are. They didn’t have to make themselves into monsters.”

“Do you really think they had a choice? Free will is a uniquely human quality, Sam. God never gifted his angels with it.”

“Are you trying to say that God made them like this? That he made them into demons?” Just saying it made him feel sick to his stomach.

“Are you saying he didn’t?” she asked back.

“No. I can’t believe that.”

“Why not? Is there no place in your faith for a fallible God? For a God who, in anger, twisted his firstborn children into bitter parodies of themselves and then cast them out of Eden? God is cruel, Sam. He doesn’t care how many of your kind die—how many humans suffer for eternity—as long as those angels who dared to stand against Him continue to wallow in their punishment.”

“No.” It was too much, on top of Dean, on top of what Dean had said about Jessica. He couldn’t think about this: about the possibility that they were fighting a hollow war, and that God could care less who won as long as there were bodies strewn across the field. As long as there was suffering in Hell.

“He killed His only Son on a cross, Sam. He cast down the angels who stood against Him and none were spared. Even those who stood aside, who took no part in the rebellion, were not spared His anger. If they did not fight for Him, they were as guilty as the rest. Do you think a God like that cares what happens to you and your brother? Do you think He cares about what I do, as long as I bandage the bleeding and send them back out to battle?”

She smiled bitterly.

“This war has been waged for thousands of years, and it will never end. What does it matter who I offer my services to? Light or dark, they are both the same. Your hands are just as bloody as that of some of my less reputable clients, and your sleep is less disturbed by the dreams of the damned.”

Sam stared at her. “What are you?”

“I’m the one who is going to bring your brother back to himself.”

“You’re not…” He swallowed. “You’re not a demon, are you?”

She laughed. “No. Not a demon. My skin won’t curl and smoke if you throw holy water on me. I could bathe in the stuff if I wanted to. I’m just a woman trying to get by: to protect what’s hers and offering a little help along the way. You do believe me, don’t you, Sam?”

Her eyes were blindingly blue as he nodded. “Yeah.”

“Good. You’ll only need to offer me your faith for a little longer, and then this will all be over.”

“And Dean’ll be okay?”

“He’ll be fine. Better than fine.” She looked down at Dean’s still form and her smile slipped. “He’ll be perfect.” Her voice was soft, almost reverent. She stood and left Sam to watch over his brother.

Sam let her go. He was thinking about what she had said: about God and the demons. He was thinking about Jessica, and his mom and dad. Wishing Dean were himself again so that he could ask his big brother what he thought about it: knew what Dean would say. _So what if she’s right, Sammy? They’re still out there killing innocent people and someone needs to stop them. Who’s going to help all those people if we don’t?_

No one, that was who. Sam sighed. It didn’t really matter what Dean thought, though, because he didn’t believe in God. Not really. All the evil shit they had seen over the years and Dean still refused to believe that there were forces of good out there as well. A pessimist of the highest caliber.

Sam wasn’t ready when Dean woke up. He wasn’t ready to face his brother, contaminated by that thing inside him: wasn’t ready to meet his brother’s eyes—eyes that had bored into him so coldly when relayed the demon’s message about Jessica. But the universe had never cared whether Sam was ready or not, and between one blink and the next he found that Dean was awake again, up in a low crouch, head tilted at Sam. His eyes glowed green like phosphorus.

“Dean?” Sam leaned forward, careful to stay out of reach.

Dean’s face crumpled at the sound of his voice. “Sammy? How? … I killed you.”

“No, Dean. I’m fine. See?” He raised his arms, standing, and turned. No blood. No bandages or limping. Nothing but the broken nose Dean had given him a few days ago.

Dean shook his head as though trying to clear it and froze at the sound of metal clinking. His hands came up, dragging more metal with them, and found the collar around his throat. And suddenly he didn’t look quite so confused anymore.

“What the fuck.” He stood, eyes fixed on Sam, and walked up to the edge of the salt line. And stopped, even though the chains’ reach went further. Rage flashed through his eyes, followed by something darker, hunched. For a moment, Sam forgot to breathe. It was true, then. The demon had somehow managed to infect Dean.

“Unchain me,” Dean snarled.

“Step over the salt and I will.”

Sulfur greeted Sam’s challenge, riding hot and low on the air. Some invisible force crept over the salt line, slid over Sam’s skin. He brushed at his arms unconsciously, the feel of it unclean. Dean’s eyes shifted past Sam to Rachel and Sam felt the force burst past him in a rush, heard Rachel gasp as though she’d been slapped.

“What’s happening?” he called over his shoulder without taking his eyes off of Dean.

“He’s using the siren-song deliberately. Lock the basement door, Sam. I don’t want that getting to Max.”

“Can he reach that far?” Sam asked as he went, backing up for a few feet before turning, reluctant to let Dean out of his sight. “Hell, how can he do anything at all past the salt line?”

“The demon essence. It’s giving him the extra boost he needs.”

Sam slowed on his way up the stairs, remembering. “Salt didn’t stop the demon. Why can’t Dean—”

“Because he’s only carrying a small piece of it. Just enough for the taint to register, but not enough to give him the kind of power the demon has. Luckily for us.”

Lucky. Like they’d been lucky at all. Ever. Dean especially. Damn it, Sam kept almost losing him! That rawhead, and then the daevas, and the demon, that nest of demon-familiars in Logan. And the list went on. Because Dean was always throwing himself into the front line, putting himself between Sam and all the evil sons of bitches out there, using his body as a shield for all the unsuspecting normals they came across. It was like he had some kind of passive death wish. And there was that word again—the one he’d thrown at Rachel earlier, not even thinking about it. Martyr.

Well, Sam would be damned if he was going to let Dean get away with that kind of shit. He shut the door, locked it, and then as an afterthought drew the bolt. Didn’t hurt to be sure.

When he came back down, Rachel was over by the salt line, arms loose by her sides, and for a second Sam thought that Dean had gotten to her—that the protection her sexuality, or the fact that she wasn’t really human—afforded her against the incubus thrall he was throwing around hadn’t been enough after all.

But then he realized that she wasn’t going any closer, and Dean was stepping away from her, a snarl on his face.

“What’s going on?”

“Dean and I are having a conversation about his behavior.”

“Sam.” Dean’s eyes found Sam’s and his face was clear again, open and vulnerable. Fear trembled in those otherworldly eyes. “She’s going to kill me, Sam. And then she’s going to kill you. Can’t you see that she’s doing this?”

Was she? God, _was_ she? Sam’s eyes found Rachel but she wasn’t looking at him: all her attention was focused on Dean. She hadn’t threatened them: hadn’t done anything to them even though they’d given her ample opportunity. And Bobby had sent them to her. He had told Sam…

Rachel’s shoulders stiffened but she didn’t turn. “Get the bowl, Sam,” she said.

Sam hesitated. He could hunt down that stray thought—memory, whatever it had been—or he could do what Rachel told him to do. She had admitted that she wasn't on their side, but she wasn’t with the demons either. Neutral. No reason for her not to help them.

Tears shimmered in his brother’s eyes, threatening to spill. “Sam, _please_.” Said in the exact same way that Dean had pleaded with their father in the cabin, with the demon that was possessing John bleeding him from the inside out. Sam started to move toward his brother and then hesitated. Dean wasn’t right: he was sick, something was inside him.

Sam loved his brother, trusted him, but could he trust him now? Now that there was something wearing Dean’s skin like an old coat? _It’s still Dean_ , he thought. _He’s not possessed, Rachel said so. He’s just…infected._ Which meant that there was a chance that this was really Dean pleading with him. Which meant that Sam didn’t really have a decision to make at all.

He was about to move forward again: to walk right across that salt line and into Dean’s reach. But before he had a chance to, Dean’s eyes changed. Sam watched as the humanity bled out of his brother’s face, leaving him hollow. Sam had taken too long to make up his mind, and the thing inside his brother had decided that he wasn’t coming: that it’s ploy had failed. But it had been a close thing. So close.

Dean smirked at him. “This isn’t going to work, you know,” he announced, rocking back on his heels and stretching his arms up above his head. The chains rattled together, as heavy as feathers from the way Dean was moving around.

“Sam, the bowl?” Rachel asked.

“You doing this for free, bitch?” Dean asked her, eyes still on Sam. “Cause last time I checked, your kind never gives anyone something for nothing.”

 _‘She’s not too picky about who she’ll help, is all. And she never does anything for free.’_ Bobby’s voice. Bobby had warned him…

“Sam!” Rachel snapped. “We need to do this now!”

It was all going so fast. He couldn’t think: there was too much information, too much to process. Dean and Jessica and God’s terrible vengeance and Sam couldn’t keep up. The only clear thing in his head was that Dean was in trouble and needed Sam to do something about it. Rachel had promised to help Dean. So Sam was going to do what he had to so that she could do that now, and think about everything else later.

Making that decision was like stepping into the eye of a hurricane. Everything suddenly went quiet and still in his head as he crossed the basement to fetch the bowl Rachel had been mixing things into before. The bowl was heavy in Sam’s arms, a comforting weight as he stepped up next to Rachel.

“Do you know what you’re doing?” Dean’s voice was low and easy-going as Sam reached the salt-line and stopped, staring into the bowl so that he didn’t have to see that dead look in his brother’s eyes.

“Helping you.”

“You make a deal with this thing, and it’ll destroy you. Oh, it won’t kill you, cause that’s not its way, but it’ll hurt you. It’ll fuck with your head until you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t: what’s right or wrong. It’ll make you forget—”

Sam couldn’t listen to him anymore. Dean was confusing things again, muddying the waters. “You’re messed up, Dean. There’s something inside you making you sick. But we’re going to kick its ass, all right?” He felt Rachel stir beside him.

Dean laughed. “Last chance, Sammy. Don’t do this. You’ll regret it.”

Sam lifted his head, forced himself to meet his brother’s eyes. Green bonfires burned into him. “No,” he said, voice steady. “I won’t.”

Beside him, Rachel opened her mouth and began to speak, arms stretched out toward Dean. The language she used was unfamiliar to Sam, which meant it wasn’t Latin or Greek or Aramaic, wasn’t any of the normal tongues they used for rituals.

Whatever it was, it hurt Dean.

At the first word he jerked as though he’d been shot. At the second word he hunched over, grabbing at his stomach. By the third word he was on the floor in a fetal position, shaking uncontrollably. But his head was up, and those unholy eyes latched onto Rachel.

“Fuck off, bitch,” he growled, then screamed as Rachel’s chant sped. Sam watched as Dean got himself under control again, pushing whatever pain he felt deep inside him the way Dad had taught them. Sweat beaded his skin and his face was white, making his eyes more startling: jewel-like.

Sam’s calm shook, stray thoughts slipping through. _You be careful with this woman… I slit open her stomach with a butcher knife while she was sleeping… He doesn’t care how many of your kind die… it told them to give me a message for you. Jessica’s roasting in hell…_

“You don’t get me,” Dean panted. “I won’t be … ngh … your fucking pet.”

Rachel smiled down at him, sweetly, and nodded to Sam. “Pour the mixture on him, Sam.”

And Sam, heart screaming at him to stop—to stop this _right now_ —stepped over the salt in a daze and dumped the contents of the bowl on top of his brother. He was expecting some kind of reaction, but Dean didn’t seem to register that he’d done anything. All his attention was still fixed on Rachel, words rolling off her tongue in a continuous flow.

“You bitch! I’m not … I’ll never … Fuck!” The tremors wracking Dean’s body worsened as Rachel followed Sam across the salt to kneel next to him.

She pressed the heel of her left hand against his forehead, peacefully, and said, “ _In nomine patri, filii, et spiritus_.”

 _Oh God, what have I done?_

Dean turned his head, mouth opening, and black sludge—not smoke like Sam had seen before—seeped out onto the floor, where it was absorbed and disappeared. Dean was still shaking, but that horrible fire had gone out of his eyes, leaving them normal again. Rachel stood and turned to Sam—something there in her face: triumph?—and smiled at him.

“He’ll be fine. Just give him a few minutes to come down. He’s been through a great deal.”

“I don’t…” Sam was trembling: lost. That was it? No, something wasn’t right. But Dean was still alive: he was hurting but he looked like he was coming out of it a little. _Was I wrong? Are we through this?_ “He’s okay? He isn’t—”

“The demonic essence is gone and he’s cured—mostly—of the Aspect. There may be a few lingering aftereffects, but nothing dangerous. Nothing he can’t control.”

“I…” Sam looked down at Dean, who was watching him with beseeching eyes and shuddering, and then back at Rachel. “What do I—I can’t believe I didn’t ask before, but how can we thank you? We’ve got a little money saved up, if you need—”

She shook her head. “It’s taken care of.”

 _'And she never does anything for free.' 'We’ve got some money saved up.' 'That’s not what I meant.'_

But she was moving away already and Dean was at his feet, reaching for him, trying to say something, and Sam knelt next to his brother. He’d chase after Rachel with his questions later.

“Dean,” he said. “Hey, man. You’re gonna be okay.”

Dean was glaring at him. “Sam, you dumb shit,” he said, and then passed out.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Rachel wasn’t there when Sam brought Dean upstairs. Neither was Max. He left Dean on the couch while he searched, growing increasingly frantic. His heart was whispering to him with every step, and always the same word. _Traitor. Traitor. Traitor._

He remembered every word of Bobby’s phone call now, and couldn’t believe that he had forgotten it—been made to forget it. How could he have been so stupid? He should have gotten Dean out of there when he first noticed how Rachel was looking at him. Should never have gotten out of the Impala, just put it in gear and run.

Dean handed him the note when Sam finally gave up and returned to the living room. The potion Sam had dumped on him had dried to a deep maroon color, like blood. Dean’s face was closed, his eyes shadowed where the early morning sunlight from the living room window fell across them.

 

Boys, 

Thank you for a surprisingly wonderful day. I certainly didn’t expect to be meeting such an interesting human when I got up this morning.

I will miss this house, but it was getting to be time to move on and it isn’t every day that an honest to god martyr drops into my lap. I just couldn’t resist.

I left some tablets for Dean in the kitchen cabinet. They’re angelica mixed with asphodel. Make sure you take them, Dean: you don’t want to hurt anyone, do you? Once a day. If you don’t trust me, mix your own. Two teaspoons of angelica to one of the asphodel. Honey makes them go down better. It’ll help with the Aspect. I got most of it out; with the tablets’ help you should be able to control the rest.

Sam—Don’t be too hard on yourself. I’ve been passing for human far longer than you’ve been hunting. A little memory work on a mortal—even a gifted psychic like yourself—is mere child’s play. In fact, I’ll make a suggestion that you just go ahead and forget any of this ever happened. You spent the week in bed with the flu. Dean took good care of you, just like he’s always done. Trust me, it’ll be easier this way. There isn’t anything you can do, and you’ll just hurt yourself trying.

Be good, Dean.

Be seeing you.

 

It was signed, simply, R.

In a postscript below, Sam read,

 

Oh, and Sam? You don’t need to thank me for the nose. Think of it as a gift of appreciation for giving Dean to me.

 

“What does she mean about your nose?” It was the first thing Dean had said to him since he came to. He was ignoring the rest of the note, which was so fucking typical Sam thought he could scream. Then again, Sam was still processing the rest of it himself, so he was willing to go along with the diversion for the moment.

He reached up and felt at the tape holding his nose in place. Pressed against it a little, waiting for the sharp crack of pain. Then he dashed over to a small mirror hanging on the wall and looked at himself.

Dark bruises still spread out from it to shadow his eyes, but his nose wasn’t broken anymore.

“How did she… _When_ did she…”

Dean sighed from the couch. “Well, let’s get going. Lot of miles we can cover before the sun goes down.”

Sam gaped at him. “What? What about Rachel? And Max? What does she mean ‘go ahead and forget’? Hell, Dean, what does she mean by ‘giving’ you to her? I didn’t give her anything!” Okay, so apparently he was ready to talk about this. _Traitor_ , his heart hammered. _Traitor_. God, why hadn’t he done something—anything—in the basement to stop that damned ritual?

“She means what she says, Sam.” Dean sounded tired. “And Max probably went back to wherever she came from. Now are you going to get in the car or am I going to drag you out?”

“But Dean, she…” He swallowed, thickly. “She did something to you, didn’t she?” Dean didn’t answer. Wouldn’t look at him. Frantically, Sam stepped forward and grabbed his arm. “Dean? What did she do?”

Dean looked at him then, smiling tightly. “It’s not important, Sam. I’m fine. Let’s go.” And gently unhooked his arm from Sam’s grasp.

“No, Dean. You have to tell me what she did—what I—“ _traitor_ “—helped her do. What does she mean I _gave_ you to her?”

“I can’t, Sammy.” Tightly.

“You mean you won’t,” Sam pressed.

“No,” Dean snapped back. “I mean I can’t. Look, I thought…” He shook his head. “I thought I saw something. Something old and powerful as hell. But I don’t remember anymore.”

“Dean, she said she wasn’t a demon, but we were talking and she brought up the Fall, you know, with Lucifer—”

“She’s not a demon, Sammy. Something different. Something ... I don’t know, older.”

“Older? What’s older than a demon?”

“I don’t know, all right? And like I said, I don’t remember exactly. The only reason I saw anything at all is because that thing she put inside me knew.”

“What thing? What do you—”

“I was fine when we came upstairs, Sam. I felt fucking great except for that Aspect shit. And then we were sitting with Rachel, and I was eating those damned cookies of hers—store-bought my ass—and that’s when I started feeling … wrong.”

“She _drugged_ you?” Sam demanded. Damned if that wasn’t something new on top of everything else. He was getting hysterical, but couldn’t seem to care. “Why would she drug you if she’s so old and powerf—”

“Forget about Rachel for a minute, okay, Sam? She’s not important.”

“Not important? Dean, she—”

“You need to pay real close attention here, Sam. Because I want to tell you this before you forget. There was no demon. No hit. It was all just chance, okay? All that stuff I said in the kitchen? Bullshit. The incubi were there, I walked in on their nest guns blazing and they fought back. End of story.”

Forget? What did Dean mean, _‘before he forgot’_?

“Whatever she put inside me wasn’t a demon, Sam, but it was close. Some kind of spell, maybe. It made me—look, none of it was true, all right?”

 _None of what I said about Jessica was true._ But of course he didn’t say that, not out loud. Sam heard it anyway: heard Dean’s silent language even when his mind was coming apart in shreds and he had to keep reminding himself to breathe.

“Okay,” he said, forcing himself to focus. He could fix this. “Okay. We’ll get the stuff from the car and we wait for her to get back. Then we make her undo whatever it was she did to you.”

“She’s not coming back, Sam. Didn’t you read the note?”

“We have to do _something_ , Dean! She put that thing in you, whatever it was, and we don’t even know why!”

“Of course we know why she did it, Sam! You just don’t want to admit it. That’s not the same thing.”

Yeah, okay, Dean was right. Sam knew but he didn’t want to know. It was up there on the list of things he didn’t want to think about.

But Dean was continuing, plunging ahead the one time Sam wished he would back the fuck off. “That ritual—“

“Dean, don’t.” Because he didn’t want to hear about that ritual, whatever it had been. Not right now. Later, they’d need to do some research, try and found out what it had all been for, but right now Sam didn’t want to know.

He already knew too much, and not enough at all. He knew that the ritual had needed Dean bound in that specific way: silver chains, throat, ankles and wrists. The circle of salt may or may not have been for show. That symbol painted on Dean’s forehead—a symbol Sam was just now noticing had disappeared when Rachel touched him. The ritual had needed Sam to drench his brother in that potion, whatever it was.

But he didn’t know why she hadn’t just done the ritual and claimed it was for the Aspects.

“Because you would have known,” Dean said gently, and Sam realized he’d spoken out loud. “We were out of our depth here, but she knew you’d sense something was off. Silver doesn’t do shit against demons, Sam. And she didn’t use any Latin. And I’ll bet you a hundred to one she didn’t even use any holy water.”

She hadn’t.

“But the same stuff holds for demonic possession, Dean. I would have noticed the same problems.” And he had. He’d noticed something was wrong and had chosen to ignore it. _Traitor_.

“Not if she distracted you—gave you something else to think about. She knew about the demon, Sam. And she knew about Dad. About Jessica. She put that thing inside me to get you worked up enough that you weren’t thinking. I bet she also fucked around with you a little while I was out, right?”

 _Why not? Is there no place in your faith for a fallible God? For a God who, in anger, twisted his firstborn children into bitter parodies of themselves and then cast them out of Eden? God is cruel, Sam. He doesn’t care how many of your kind die—how many humans suffer for eternity—as long as those angels who dared to stand against Him continue to wallow in their punishment._

Oh, she’d fucked with him, all right. “It shouldn’t have mattered, Dean. I should have noticed that something was wrong. I did notice—I knew something was off, but I didn’t stop her—”

“It’s okay, man. Just…” Dean ran a hand through his hair and looked away and Sam knew before Dean continued that share-time was officially over. “Let’s just go, okay?”

“Damn it, Dean, it’s not all right! I dragged you here, I let her do something to you—Hell, I helped her!”

“It’s not your fault, Sammy. Let it go.” Dean turned, gathering his coat. His hand hesitated by Rachel’s note and then left it there. Dean buried both hands in his pockets and turned back to face Sam.

“Dean, I _knew_ something was off before she performed that ritual.”

“And before that?”

“Before that what?”

“You get any vibes before that? No? I’m not surprised. Whatever she is, she’s good. I didn’t sense anything wrong with her until that thing got inside me.”

“What does that have to do with it? I could have stopped her, Dean. I could have…”

“Left me stuck with that thing in me.” Dean laughed. “No thanks. I’ll take door number two.”

“Dean…”

“Look, Sammy. It was already over by the time she showed her hand. I was already fucked, okay? The thing was in me, it needed to come out. What were you going to do? Shoot the bitch and carry your possessed brother around with you?”

“We could have found someone else…”

“I wasn’t going to last that long and you know it, Sam. So drop it. I’m hungry, I’m tired, and I’m covered in this fugly gunk—which, by the way, had better come out of these jeans.”

“This isn’t funny, Dean.”

“No, it’s freaking hilarious. Come on, Sammy. I’m alive, you’re alive. We’ve been sucker punched but we’re not out. We need to regroup, do some research.”

“Research…”

“Yeah,” Dean said encouragingly. “I bet we find out what she is in a week. Find her, make her undo whatever she did, and then be on our merry way.”

Sam eyed his brother distrustfully. Dean was being too light-hearted about this, even for him. The only other time Sam had ever seen his brother like this was after the doctor had told him he was going to die. This was…acceptance. It hit him low in the stomach. Dean had already given this one up. He was placating Sam, trying to maneuver him into going along. Well fine. Sam would play along. For now.

But he was going to research this thing even if he had to do it in secret, by himself. He was going to find out what Rachel had done to his brother. Then he was going to undo it. And the bitch could go screw herself because he sure as hell wasn’t going to ‘just go ahead and forget it.’

 _Oh no? You forgot about Bobby’s phone call. What makes you think this’ll be any different?_

 _Because I know now, that’s why,_ he answered himself. _I’m ready for it_.

He forced a nod for Dean. “Okay.” And then, because it was expected, “But we start researching tonight.”

Dean shrugged noncommittaly. “Sure, dude, whatever. I’m driving. You think there’s a Burger King around here?”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Sam meant to call Bobby and ask him about Rachel when they stopped for the night, he really did. It just slipped his mind until he was almost drifting off to sleep, and then he was too tired to do anything about it. _I’ll call him tomorrow_ , he thought.

But he didn’t.


	5. Epilogue

Three days later, Sam caught Dean mixing asphodel and angelica in the motel bathroom. Dean shrugged, eyes wary, but Sam only asked, puzzled, “What’s that for?”

Dean regarded him steadily for a second and then smiled and clapped Sam on the back. “Increases virility, Sammy. You should try some.”

Sam wrinkled his nose. “I think I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself.” Dean swirled the mixture in a small glass of water and tipped it back, then grimaced. “She was right about the honey.”

Sam was on his way back out to the main room, but something in what Dean had said nagged at him. “Who was right about the honey?” he asked.

“Hmm?”

“Who was right about the honey?”

Another one of those laconic stares from his brother, and then a shrug. “This girl I got the idea from.”

“Oh.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Five days later, when he and Dean were stopped in a bar and Dean had had a few too many to drink, Sam noticed that all the women in the place— _all_ of them—were staring at his brother. He nudged Dean with one shoulder. “Dude, quit it.” Because, even though Sam didn’t know why, somehow this was all Dean’s fault.

“What?” Dean looked up, blinked blearily at the women who were subtly edging closer to the table. “Oh.” He frowned for a moment, concentrating, and the women faltered. Some of them looked embarrassed, most were just confused. “Better?”

“Yeah.” Sam went back to drinking his beer. Dean was watching him, trying to be sly about it and failing miserably because he was drunk. “I got something on my face?” Sam asked finally.

Dean jumped, caught, and then managed a weak smile. “Naw. I was just remembering that girl from about a week ago. You remember: Max? Had a thing for you?”

Sam frowned. “Don’t be an ass, Dean. You know we’ve been holed up for the last few weeks waiting for me to get over this damn bug.” And he sneezed.

Dean nodded, his eyes oddly serious for his drunken state. “Right. That bug. Sorry, must have been thinking of this nightmare I had where all the hot women wanted you instead of me.”

“Shut up.” But Sam was grinning because he was sitting at a bar sharing a few drinks with his brother, and they weren’t injured or in the middle of a hunt. All was right with the world.

Later that night, when they went back to the hotel room, he dreamed of angels.


End file.
